Can YOU help my computer problem?!? (re: sound)

[MarcO]

I've been going mental about this for a few weeks now, so now I turn to you good people for tips/advice.

First a brief history: my computer is a refurbished Asus with an apparently illegitimate Windows XP 2002 on it. Not a workhorse but we don't need one, it suits me for the moment. Now, from day one, in order to get external sound from the speakers, I had to place headphones into the headphone jack on the onboard soundcard. Over time, this jack got looser and looser, I had to wiggle it into the "sweet spot" time and again to get sound. Now it's just too loose to even do that. And where it is mounted on the computer is an awkward spot behind part of the metal casing, can't get my sausage fingers in there. Of course, this is the part of the PC that is inaccessible like this.

So, I bought an external soundcard - admittedly a cheap one: Sabrent SBT-SP6C (all I do with sound on a PC is cruise youtube and check out some tunes, nothing demanding AWESOME sound). I put it in, loaded the disc it came with, ran it. Then I disabled the onboard soundcard through accessing BIOS in startup. Reconnected the speakers (properly I believe).

And now, I have nothing happening. The sound device manager tells me there are no audio devices detected. When I put the disc back to try to reinstall, my PC thinks it is full of pictures, not data, another source of frustration. Thinking drivers might be the problem, I searched for some for this but that was a total source of frustration.

Yes, I could take it in but I admit I'd rather not go computer-less for a couple of days and throw diagnostic fees at a problem that I hope is simple enough and simply down to my lack of expertise about computers.

Any advice friends? Remember, I am pretty unschooled in these matters.

[CyberHippie]

Ugh... I think part of the problem is the sabrent device. I've had problems getting some of their stuff to work before, and their drivers disk is usually a joke.

Is this a USB device?

I would try going into the device manager and deleted anything there for audio. Then reboot and hopefully you'll get the windows found new hardware routine. From there you could point it to the drivers disk, or hopefully windows will find a proper driver on it's own. Have you been through all that already?

[bouche]

I'm so blown away at the fact that here we are in 2009 with soundcard problems STILL! When the first soundblaster cards came out, they were a bitch to configure,but when you did get it right, you had wicked sound compared to the bleeps and blaps.

I have not had a dedicated card since the latest mobos have really good integrated soundchips. Mind you, any new machine that I have setup presents problems like that.

I also have an iMac. That motherfacker never gives me sound problems.

[MarcO]

[rubberdinghy]

Service Pack 2.

[backbacon]

I had similar problems, MarcO. I went the route as outlined by NaturalMystik, deleting any audio devices in device mgr. and rebooting. I also messed around with pulling the sound card out and putting it back a few times. Finally it worked somehow.

[Basher]

MarcO, if you are still having problems PM me and I could talk you through it.